


Reb00t

by atropass



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hackers, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Wizards, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Cute, Domestic Fluff, Fantasy, First Kiss, First Meetings, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Smut, Gay, Gay Male Character, Gay Sex, Hacking, Hurt/Comfort, Ice, Lemon, Lime, Love, M/M, Magic, Male Slash, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Slash, Slow Burn, Smut, Snow and Ice, Terrorists, Urban Fantasy, Violence, Wizards, trying to write in english plz hAlp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:48:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28696476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atropass/pseuds/atropass
Summary: Jasper Bright is not an ordinary wizard. Behind that innocent face hides a skilled strategist unable to feel empathy, a fearsome hacker and a terrorist. On the trail of the men who tortured him almost to death, he tick off the list the names of all those who tried to put him in chains. But there is a detail, a contraindication in his perfect plan: Andrew Griffith. Smiling, penniless and with a dirty criminal record. There is something in that human that breaks through its armor of apathy.
Kudos: 2





	1. Chains

**Author's Note:**

> [!] This is the first time I try to write in English, so please be patient to me <3  
> I really enjoy write in my language (Italian), but I want to practise.  
> "Reb00t" is a short story (4 or 5 chapters) and I really hope you will appreciate it
> 
> Bye!
> 
> Trix

He didn't like discos. There were always so many and sweaty people, in dire need of losing themselves. 

Jasper watched them as if they were a bunch of strange animals. Sitting on the leather sofa, with a hat pulled down over his pale hair and an extraordinarily composed posture, his sharp blue gaze wandered along the dance floor. In the San Francisco State University sweatshirt he had to look like an ordinary college kid unable to relax.

Her thin hands clasped on her knees, a Gin Tonic that he had expertly overturned halfway into the plastic seedling beside him. Not that alcohol could harm his clarity in any way, but not drinking that cocktail would have seemed unconventional. 

He analyzed humans with a mixture of disgust and scientific curiosity. Nothing that he was capable of showing through the veil of apathy that, like an iron curtain, shielded his already rare emotions. 

However, he was not there tonight to do a sociological analysis. He was looking for a person.

"Are you lost, sweetie?" a girl chirped as she collapsed beside him, digging a place on the sofa at a distance that he considered beyond ordinary decency. She looked really drunk.

He slowly turned his head towards her. Long legs. Dress with golden rhinestones. Black lacquered nails tightened around the remnants of a Sex on the beach. Asian ethnicity. Dark hair gathered in two pigtails weighed down by colorful extensions. 

"I wouldn't say it," Jasper replied in the neutral tone that set him apart. “I am perfectly aware of my location. Sacramento, nightclub  _ The Floor _ ." 

"You're funny!" the girl giggled. 

Jasper blinked. He always blinked when he didn't understand something, which was pretty annoying. “Curious definition. I don't think that I voluntarily tried to provoke your laughter. I must have unconsciously engaged some mechanism that triggered it." 

"Shhh." The girl leaned her head against his shoulder and smiled, dizzy. "Stop talking." 

The human girl was getting in the way. To optimize the times it would have been more productive to neutralize her instantly, possibly away from prying eyes so as not to trigger side effects. As Jasper's head crowded with probabilistic calculations and a door swung open on the floor plan he had reconstructed from memory in his mind, a high-pitched whistle made the human task perk up. 

"Yuki! Stop bothering him, you're drunk like a French decadentist and your boyfriend is freaking out. Come on, get up." 

The voice belonged to a very tall and slender guy. The arms full of tattoos arms poked out of the sleeves of the Pixies logo T-shirt. His body exuded devastating strength despite his sinewy muscles and lean, gnarled legs wrapped in jeans. It gave the impression that if it crashed into a wall, it would bounce off it without being scratched. 

From his ears hung all kinds of junk, the same that disfigured his right eyebrow and mouth. Jasper thought that steel ring was exactly where it should have been: on the side of her lower lip. 

"Dave can go to hell!" the girl named Yuki barked. "My friend and I are having fun, can't you see?" 

"I don't know this young lady and I can say I have no friendship with her," Jasper assured. 

Finally, the guy seemed to notice him. The way his eyes fell on Jasper changed his body's optimal condition. Sweating. Rapid heartbeat. Dizziness. What magic was that? Whatever it was, it could have jeopardized the operation. Another threat to be neutralized. 

For the second time in a few minutes, a human reacted with hilarity to his words. The boy smiled. Jasper’s heart rate increased. “Even I pretend I don't know her, sometimes. Well, sorry, but I have to be a responsible friend." 

The guy reached out to Yuki, grabbed her by the arm and dragged her into the crowd. Jasper remained on the loveseat, dazed and unable to process what had happened. That person was no longer there, yet the trace of his magic had stuck to him. He could not think well, nor remember if there was a type of spell capable of mixing his thoughts and polarizing them only towards one goal: the unknown one. 

It was impossible. Unless… 

Unless the Traders realized he was looking for them. One by one.

As long as that guy was alive, he wouldn't be able to reason. Jasper got up and walked slowly towards the chaos of people who, like a single organ, pulsed on the dance floor with their arms raised to the ceiling. They looked like hundreds of antennas shaken by gusts of wind.

He slipped between those bodies drunk with alcohol and pills, deafened by the bass of the song that filled every corner of silence.

A cold gush flowed from the tattoo on his right wrist, identical to the one on his left: a pair of barcodes. The trench knife materialized in the palm. Neutralizing him among hundreds of people would get him out of the way. They were all too clingy and clouded to spot the killer.

When he hit something hard, Jasper's calculations went up in smoke with a snap of his fingers. The boy's chest was there, an inch from his nose, and that pair of eyes were on him again.

The guy reached down to reach Jasper's ear. Sweating. Rapid heartbeat. Dizziness. He had to annihilate him. Now.

"Hey! I was looking for you.” The stranger shouted over the roar of the music. From his thick black-blue hair a lock escaped that went to touch his cheek. “I wanted to apologize, Yuki goes crazy with cocktails! Anyway, I'm Andy.”

He held out a hand with slender fingers, full of tattoos, a couple of iron rings and a few calluses. A musician. Jasper stared at her for so long that Andy pulled her back, not embarrassed at all. He seemed about to say something when a flash of enthusiasm lit his eyes. 

"I love this song." He began to sway to the rhythm, eyes closed, filled with an energy of his own. Jasper watched him. "My daddy put a gun to my head /said 'if you kiss a boy I'm gonna shoot you dead'" he mimed with his lips, pointing a fake gun to his head, "So I tied him up with gaffa tape / And I locked him in a shed / Then I went out to the garden /  _ And I fucked my best friend _ !"

A hot wave ran through Jasper's body, from his face to his toes. Andy was smiling, free from the shackles of common sense, totally unaware of the effect of his magic. The situation was degenerating. He had to act. Yet he stood there, unable to move.

"Don't you like dancing?" Andy asked, with no real accusation in his voice. 

Jasper felt stupid and stupidly shook his head.

"I got it. Did your friends drag you here?"

"I'm afraid I won't be able to count a large number of friendships among my acquaintances." 

"What?"

"I'm here alone."

Andy made a face pointing to his ear, as if to say he couldn't hear it well. He got close to his ear and Jasper felt the warm breath brush against his earlobe. "Can I offer you something at the bar so you can explain it to me?"

It was a trap. But he followed him anyway, his eyes glued to his nervous back. The bar was nothing more than a semicircular counter radiated with blue neon tubular lights.

"What do you take?" Andy asked.

"A Red Bull."

The guy gave him an amused grimace, but he satisfied him. They perched on the most secluded stools. Andy took two sips of beer and peered at him. “So: you don't like to drink, you don't like to dance and you are here alone. A bit unconventional."

He knew. He knew everything. But if he hoped to beat him in his game of chess, he was wrong.

"Do you find it unconventional that I just want to have fun and enjoy music?"

"Already. But there's nothing wrong with that, huh. I just think someone as cute as you shouldn't be alone and get depressed. " Andy winked at him and Jasper felt his stomach turn liquid. The monster inside him was purring.

"C ... cute?"

He had to be a more powerful and dangerous wizard than he had anticipated. It had annihilated him.

“Cute is an understatement, actually. Cute is a calendar kitty. You are really beautiful, like a Little Prince who has managed to grow. "

Jasper nearly spill the Red Bull, but he pulled himself together and set it down on the counter. If that guy wanted to play his cards face up, he would have done it. He cleared his throat. "I'm looking for a person." 

"Who? Maybe I can help you, I know everyone in here. " 

"Izzy Prescott." 

The stranger's immortal smile faded. Busted. Although his confusion was quite convincing. "What does a wren like you want from Izzy Prescott?"

"He and his collaborators have done something that I must make him regret."

Andy studied it silently, squinting. The long legs crossed, one of the old amphibians swinging absently to the rhythm of the bass. "You got yourself in a lot of trouble, hm?"

"Wrong. He's the one who 'got himself in a lot of trouble' ” Jasper poured out with utter atonality.

Andy's grin took on a twist of skepticism. “I like your attitude, little prince, but you are neither the first nor the last who would like to skin him. Listen to me, whatever it is, forget it unless you want to ruin that pretty face.”

"If you're not willing to help me, our conversation is ablative."

"Abla-what?" 

"Superfluous. I need to track down Prescott. Timing is important." Jasper started to slide off the stool but felt something warm touch his wrist. 

Andy's hand. 

Sweating. Rapid heartbeat. Dizziness. 

"Okay," he sighed. “I can find him and lure him out. You come out of the club, I'll take him to the alley across the street so you can… talk. Be careful though. That's a crazy dog."

Andy emptied his beer and disappeared into the crowd. He was so good at acting that Jasper almost regretted having to take him out.

*

The streets of Sacramento were covered in a veil of snow and a dance of white flakes descended on the buildings in spiraling movements, yet Jasper sat on the bleachers outside The Floor with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows and not a hint of trembling. 

Some people stood on the sidewalk, some intent on smoking in groups, some throwing up behind a pole. 

Nightclub's doors creaked open and Jasper spotted Andy walking past him as he ran down the stairs. He pulled the baseball cap over his head and looked at the man who was with him. A thug with a shaved skull and nostrils dilated by methedrine stuck in an ice blue bomber jacket. Izzy Prescott. 

The two crossed the street, heading for the dark alley that slipped between an industrial warehouse and a concrete basketball court. As they disappeared, Jasper got up and followed the tracks they had left in the snow. 

There was a high chance they were ambushing him, but they wouldn't catch him off guard. He slipped into the shadows of the alley and went to crouch behind the dumpster. The two faced each other in the pool of yellow light that rained from the street lamp. 

"So, do you have it or not?" Prescott growled.

"Sure, man, you know I'm never short of it." Andy's words were followed by a rustle of clothes and a crunch of plastic, as if he had pulled something out of his pocket. "Here it is."

Silence. "That's all?"

"That's five grams, isn't that enough for you?"

“What the fuck do I and my boys do with five grams? Did you take us for a bunch of jerk-off students?"

“Well, that's what on your plate, dude. You know, after the latest blitz and the amount of stuff they found on me trust me it's best to keep a low profile. If it happens again..." 

There was something in Andy's chatter that must have pressed a sore point in Izzy Prescott's mind, because Jasper heard the sound of a dry thud, something wet shattering. Leaning over the dumpster, he noticed the man clutching a brass knuckle glistening with blood. Andy was lying on the ground and moaning holding his face.

He had gone beyond the artistic performance. 

"Do you think you can take the piss out of me, fagot?" Prescott barked at him, kicking him in the spleen.

Jasper felt something hot make its way into his gut, a rage unable to be perceived from the outside. He didn't want Prescott's fury befalling that boy. The likelihood that he was in league with the Merchant had dropped dramatically. 

He came out from the hiding place, calmly, and watched them. Prescott stopped with his fist in midair, and focused him with an unintelligent look. "Bright. Are you alive." 

"An ablative finding."

"Abla-what?"

"Superfluous."

Prescott shook his head vehemently and bared his teeth in a grimace. “You pride yourself on being a strategist, but coming here was a really idiotic move. If you were in a hurry to be locked up… ” 

“ I won't be chained up a second time, ”Jasper said placidly. “When you catched me you were many more. Now you are alone." 

A flash of awareness crossed Prescott's gaze. "Do you think others will not find out?" 

"You mean Scott, Walters, Hess, Clough and Arrington?" Jasper blinked. “All dead. They didn't have time to understand what was happening, or to warn you and others. Maybe if you kept in touch, instead of splitting up, you would have had a chance. So, now only you are missing." 

Prescott's anger and fear erupted and he flung himself on him. Jasper realized that the time to explain was over. He slipped to the side and a haze of ice splinters formed over his head. Before Prescott could spot them, they hit him in a storm of blades and pinned him to the wall. The skin on his face was now horribly flayed. "You ..." he gasped. 

Trench knives materialized in Jasper's hands. Quick as death, he sliced through Prescott's throat and a gush of blood shot from the wound, splashing his face. He stood motionless as the light of life faded in the eyes of the last Trader and his body sagged to the ground.

Jasper considered throwing him in the dumpster, but he wouldn't be able to lift it himself. He opted to point his hands at him and cocoon him in a prison of snow that would melt the next morning. 

Operation completed.

Andy's painful moan caught his attention and Jasper examined him. He didn't seem quite in himself to understand what had happened, and leaving him there would certainly help Jasper divert attention from other suspects. Maybe the Sacramento police would have believed in a fight gone badly. Maybe they would blame Andy, or Andy would get by thank to his scars, passing as a victim of the assault. His fate was not Jasper's problem.

He started to move away, but a strange force drew him back to the boy on the ground, like a hook planted in the navel. It was the stupidest and most risky move he could make. 

He crouched down on and took Andy's hand. 

Sweating. Rapid heartbeat. Dizziness.

They both disappeared with a 'flup', as if they had never been there.


	2. Tears

They materialized on the bed in his hotel room at the Hilton, reserved in the name of a certain Duane C. Miller, 4978 Edwarts Street, Rocky Mount, NC 27804. 

He heard Captain Vulkensauffen scamper on the carpet. The Italian bracco sat down diligently near the edge of the bed and eyed the newcomer with suspicion. 

"Keep watch" Jasper said. 

The room was nothing special, it looked like a place where people didn't stay for more than two nights. The large window overlooked the spectacle of Christmas lights that shone among the high-rises in the night.

Andy did not wake up, but within minutes he fell asleep. Jasper walked over to the mini-fridge and pulled out another Red Bull, then retrieved the laptop and sat on the other side of the bed.

He drank a sip from the can, placed it on the bedside table and his fingers flew quickly across the keyboard.

_ Tac tac tac.  _

He crossed Prescott's name off the list. Now all that remained was to draw the rest of the Traders into their headquarters and blow it up, after which it could be said to be relatively safe.

Andy squirmed on the covers, moaning, and Jasper glanced at his watch. Two hours had passed. 

He looked at him. A bruise marred his beautiful face, encrusted with blood near his mouth. The piercing had been ripped off, but luckily Prescott hadn't cut the guy's lip in half.

"What the hell…?" Andy muttered, rubbing his eyelids.

He waited for him to sit up against the headboard. 

"A mishap," Jasper said. "Prescott neutralized you and I neutralized him." 

“When you say 'neutralized'…” 

“I mean finished. I ended his life. I killed him. " Jasper resumed typing as if nothing had happened. There were some bank transactions to check, he couldn't risk the credit card owners spotting suspicious alterations. The secret was to take little from everyone and choose bank accounts of wealthy people. Two hundred dollars could be spent on his wife's latest pissed purchase, or a particularly expensive yoga class. 

"Who are you…?" Andy gasped.

Captain Vulkensauffen began to growl. 

"It would be more correct for me to ask you this question." Tac tac tac. “Your power over me is quite unusual. You can get me to do totally illogical actions, like bringing you here even though I don't have enough information about your identity. Also, various odds indicated that you were in league with Prescott to lure me into a trap. Still, he turned against you. " Tac tac tac. "So my question is: why, despite the risk, did you decide to help me?" 

Jasper blinked and stopped writing.

"I don't know," Andy muttered. "It seemed important to you." 

Jasper looked away from the screen and studied him. "It wasn't the answer I expected."

"What answer did you expect?" 

"That you wanted to get something from me." 

Andy's lips twisted into a smile but the movement must had bothered him 'cause he hissed in pain and touched the wound. “Shit, that asshole went hard…” 

“There's a first aid kit in the bathroom. Wait up." Jasper closed the laptop and stood up. When he returned with the box, he found Andy sitting on the edge of the bed staring intently at the dog. "What are you doing?" 

"What's its name?"

"Captain Vulkensauffen." 

Andy frowned. "Captain Vul ..." 

"Vulkensauffen." 

"Volkswagen." 

"Vulkensauffen." 

"I think I'll just call him Cap." Andy turned his gaze to Jasper, who went to sit beside him. He dabbed guy's wound with cotton soaked in disinfectant and again he felt that something in his body was not working properly.

He felt the guy's warm breath brush against his cheeks. The stormy gray irises sought his. He swallowed, certain that if he looked in them the spell would be accomplished and he would lose all trace of his will. 

"When you talk about the power I have over you," Andy murmured, and somehow his voice made the hair on his neck stand on end. "What do you mean?" 

“It's magic I've never seen. As if it enchanted me. As if it breaks my will. And since I can boast an iron will, I believe you are very powerful. "

"I'm not doing a damn thing, though." Andy snorted a laugh. “Isn't it that you just got a crush on me? It can happen." 

Jasper stopped the movement, stiffening from head to toe. "A 'what'?" 

"I confess you have the same effect on me, and if you think about it is pretty weird, considering you just confessed to me that you committed murder."

"And can I cure it?" Jasper stammered. "This ... crush."

Andy laughed in a way that sent alarm signals to every nerve of him. "Well, yes, it can pass, but there is no medicine or mathematical formula, you know?" 

"Oh." Jasper blinked. He did not understand. He hated not understanding something. 

"Looks like you've never had one," Andy teased. “Not even in high school? Not even for the pimply classmate you would like to remove from your memory? " 

“I didn't go to high school. I've studied at home. " 

"Clear." Andy's expression softened and he raised his hand to Jasper's face. He hunched his head in like a turtle, like he was afraid of getting burned, but the guy just took off his baseball cap and tossed it on the bedside table. The mop of pale gold, tending to white, ruffled. “Well, even if you've never had one, you don't know what it is? Why do you think it's magic?”

That guy had the gift of making him feel stupid with a disarming spontaneity.

"I don't know." A phrase Jasper didn't say often. Perhaps to a human it might seem like a delusional theory. “'cause I… I didn't think well. Because you were confusing me and distracting me from my goal. " He cleared his throat and put the kit away. If he had stayed a second longer under those eyes, he would have lost his ability to speak.

When he came out of the bathroom he was about to get back to his pc. He had become entangled in a conversation he could not carry on.

“You said earlier that Prescott did something to you. What do you mean?" 

Jasper's fingers stiffened on the keyboard. "It was him and his boys." 

The rustle of blankets suggested that Andy was approaching. "Not that the guards and I have a great relationship, little prince, but did you at least try to sue before walking around like a young The Punisher to get yourself justice?" 

"Police can't help me."

"Are you really sure?"

Jasper nodded. He was silent for so long that it must have looked like a dead automaton. His mind, however, was working. He didn't know anything about that guy and confiding in him would have involved a high percentage of risk. A percentage that had dropped when she helped him. However, he didn't have enough infos.

"Give me an hour," he said. “You can use room service if you want. But don't give out your name. We are in 603." And he began to type.

Andy raised his hands in surrender. He had a huge pizza brought and played with Captain Vulkensauffen, who was unwilling to have fun like his master. Meanwhile, Jasper logged into Andy's cell phone and downloaded the basic information.

Andrew Griffith, twenty-eight (four older than himself), Caucasian, born at Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento on November 3, 1992. Parents still alive, a sister named Hayley, graduated from Luther Burbank High School, Meadowview, and he had dropped out of college. For years he had been a member of the Annihilation, an anarcho punk band that gathered in abandoned places in the city and had had several troubles with the police department. A few nights in cell and several months of social services for possession of methedrine, theft and drug dealing, until he had spent nearly two years in the federal prison in Lucasville for drunk driving and theft of car. He had just left.

A problematic guy, but a human one. No contact with the magical community, much less with the Traders. Jasper closed the pc. 

"Have you ever met a wizard?" he asked.

Andy was sitting cross-legged on the ground with a slice of pizza gripped between his teeth and a cigarette butt between his fingers. He couldn't smoke in there, but Jasper doubted someone like him would care. Andy shook his head. “When I was a kid, there was someone who did some card tricks…” 

“That was a magician,” Jasper said. “I mean a wizard. One like me." He snapped his fingers and for about ten seconds the room was invaded by a snowstorm. Andy cursed and hugged his sweatshirt, but Jasper remained impassive. When everything returned to normal, he said, “I am a Sibear. I have control over the water, over the ice ... "

" What the actual fuck was that? " 

Jasper blinked. Without even giving him time to understand what had happened, he said: “There are various types of wizards and each type belongs to a House. Sibear's is mine. However, there is an organization in the magical community. They call themselves Traders and Prescott was one of them. They hunt for wizards. They can take organic material from our bodies which they sell at the black market." 

Andy widened his eyes. "Why the hell are they doing that?" 

“The organic material of the wizards is used to prepare very rare alchemical compounds. Sibear's tears, for example, are a powerful corrosive poison. That's why Prescott and the other Traders took me. " 

"Oh." 

Andy put away the slice of pizza, as if his appetite had suddenly gone.

"I succeeded to escape," Jasper said. “They kept me segregated in their operational base for months. They took off my nails and bones, then let me regenerate. But tears were the most precious thing. I was able to transform pain into pleasure in order to survive."

"How did you be able to escape?" Andy murmured.

"I let myself die," Jasper said indifferently. “We wizards are like cats, only instead of nine lives we have three. When we die our body vanishes and recomposes itself where we have hidden our Caduceus. It is a kind of amulet. We create it. A sort of check-point. And now here I am. "

Andy was sitting on the floor staring at somewhere on the carpet. The cigarette had burned to ashes on his jeans. He gave him time to process the whole story and took a few more sips of Red Bull in the meantime. 

"Well, I guess you had all the reasons to be pissed off," the guy blew, crushing his stub against the pizza box. “Then I'm glad I gave you a hand. And anyway, after tonight the level of Izzy Prescott's Jerk-o-meter just went up." Andy got up and staggered towards the mattress. He collapsed close to him with no grace. "I'm sorry for what happened to you."

Jasper blinked. “The displeasure should arise in connection with something that is important to us. We barely met four hours ago."

"In four hours you managed to upset my life, don't you notice?"

"It's an objective fact," Jasper conceded. “Someone might say he saw you leave the club before Izzy Prescott's murder, and you walked off together. The fact that you have not returned inside the nightclub makes you the number one suspect.”

The smile on Andy's face faded. "Shit, I hadn't thought of that."

“I can erase any digital traces of you if you want, but I can't do much for any eyewitnesses. Maybe I could neutralize them."

"It's not really necessary, it will only make things worse." Andy sighed so heavily that a drop of unease bloomed in Jasper's chest. Contraindications had been foreseen, of course. What he hadn't foreseen was the vague sense of guilt for involving that guy on his mission. "I'm screwed," Andy decreed. “I have to leave the city. I mean, I was just passing by... anyway ... with the precedents I have they will give me the maximum penalty."

"Doing it without a new identity would be ablative." 

"Yeah, well, I can't get one by snapping my fingers." 

Jasper gave him a dirty look and, as if he had just been offended, hissed, "I'll do it."

He opened the laptop and began up to type, wallowing in the Dark Web, under the astonished gaze of the guy.

“Seriously,” Andy murmured, “who are you? A hacker or something like that? ". 

"We can say I get along with computers." Tac tac tac. “Sean J. Wilhelm from Hutchinson, Minnesota. Is it okay?" 

"What? Yeah, of course, at this point it would be okay to call myself Rosita too." 

"If you prefer ..."

"Sean is fine," Andy hastened to add. 

As Jasper worked, he sensed the attention of his improvised and utterly uncalculated companion in adventure. That magic that magic was not. He struggled to concentrate, his eyes on the strings of codes scrolling across the screen. 

"You're amazing." 

Jasper's fingers stopped on the keys for just two or three seconds before resuming the dance. "Why are you saying that?" 

“I've never met someone like you. And I've met a lot of people in my life. " 

“Quite logical. No person is an exact copy of another person. Even the clones, placed in two different social contexts ... "

" I'm serious. I've known you for just four hours, but the closer I am, the more I want to know everything about you. "

An icy grip closed around Jasper's stomach. He pursed his lips, a muscle movement too subtle to betray his thoughts. "There is a very high probability that if you really knew  _ everything _ you would change your mind." 

"Let me judge this by myself."

The grip of ice expanded from belly to chest. The fingers flew over the keys. "Done."

"What? Already?"

"I know who to ask." Jasper closed the pc with his heart pounding in his temples. "You have to rest, we'll leave the hotel in the morning."


	3. Snow

He opened his eyes in the middle of the night, a few hours later. He could hear the sounds of the city in the distance. There was something peaceful about the creak of dozens of wheels against the frozen asphalt. The stars were barely visible behind the clouds and the veil of light pollution.

Captain Vulkensauffen snored curled up at the foot of the armchair, too disciplined to jump on.

"Don't you sleep?"

Jasper winced and found Andy's eyes on him. The guy was looking at him sleepily across the bed, dark and messy hair, clinging to the pillow.

"I can't either," the boy whispered. "I'm too nervous."

"You won't have any problems once you leave Sacramento."

“I know, but it's not something I can do easily. Would you leave your family overnight, without even a phone call?"

"My family didn't care much about me." Jasper blinked. "They didn't look for me when I disappeared." 

A mortified grimace appeared on Andy's face, as if he realized he had said something wrong. 

"It's been too many years," he added. "I don't care."

The guy peered at him from under his eyelids. Then, she slowly slipped towards him. Jasper stood still, one hand gripping the duvet. Something in his brain went haywire: how was he supposed to react?

Andy stopped only when he leaned his head against the pillow, frighteningly close. He could smell the scent of nicotine and a hint of gasoline. The guy's body radiated a heat that was almost hard to bear for a wizard tied to the ice.

"I was thinking..." The way Andy spoke in a low voice, the ease with which he had crept beyond the confines of his living space, were dumbing him down. "You are alone. And so am I. And we both have to leave Sacramento tomorrow. Do you believe that our paths... do you think they must necessarily separate?"

Jasper's eyes widened. 

"Well," Andy smiled, "I wouldn't mind having you around for a little longer."

Negative, logic would have suggested. The mission was too important and that guy's magic would compromise it. It meant exposing both of them to danger. Still, he nodded.

"Good." Something warm touched his face: Andy's hand pressed against his cheek. The ice inside him burned more than the fire itself. "Will you tell me your name sooner or later?"

"Jasper," he said foolishly.

"Jasper."

The heat reached his lips: Andy's had the aftertaste of blood and iron, soft and chapped from the cold. Everything inside him was breaking apart. He didn't move a muscle. If he didn't return the kiss, though, Andy would think he'd be wrong. Jasper tried to reply, pushing his mouth vehemently against his.

"Hey, hey, slow down, little prince" chuckled the other. 

Jasper felt the urge to sink into the mattress, but the guy must had guessed it because he ran the fingers through his hair in a light movement, a gesture that had the power to calm him. "Wait up. It's like you are tasting something you like. Calmly. Try like this."

Their lips touched again. An electric force ran through his nervous system. Andy's fingertips drew fleeting lines up and down the back of his neck, moving to the curve of his neck. They paced it back and forth, with the foresight of an artist who was studying the model thoroughly before reproducing it.

Jasper's muscles relaxed and for the first time he felt vulnerable. He closed his eyes, opened his mouth and tasted. Kissing someone was like walking through a minefield in the first steps, and running without brakes once you found the pattern.

He found himself trapped in the arms of the guy who had broken through his armor of apathy. He was boiling with an inner fever, his head was a crazy carousel that was spinning. His heartbeats were deafening him. The breath mixed with Andy's. They attacked each other, but there was a strange sweetness in that way of trying, of biting and trying to override the other.

He felt himself flipping on the mattress and the springs creaked on impact. The squeak that rose from Jasper's throat was not very masculine, but the guy didn't seem to notice. Jasper spread his legs and let the guy slip between them. Whatever was happening, the monster inside Jasper was meowing with pleasure. He instinctively rubbed his pelvis against Andy's, a rubbing of fabrics and zips jangling together. He pressed his thighs against his hips, clinging to the T-shirt as if he would never let him go again.

The heat within him exploded in a gush of hot lava. Jasper arched her back back, gritting her teeth. A series of high-pitched moans faded between the blankets. He gasped with his ears on fire.

"Woah." He snapped his eyes open again, finding himself face to face with Andy's surprised yet amused expression. "But... you came?"

Jasper dug a mental pit and buried himself in it.

"Maybe I went a little overboard." Andy's lips slid like sandpaper over living flesh, still too sensitive. 

“I-it doesn't matter. Sorry."

"No, it's okay. I'm so sorry too. I shouldn't have been carried away, it was your first kiss." He sniffed his neck. "We'll have time for the rest too, little prince." Andy collapsed beside him and hugged him. "Fuck" he blew, with a trace of suffering, "and now I can’t sleep."

  
  


*

The dawn broke the most unconventional night of his life. Jasper regained consciousness, shielding his eyes with his forearm. Then he sat up.

The bed was empty.

Captain Vulkensauffen sat in fronto of the bedroom door.

"Andrew?" he called.

No reply. No noise. The guy wasn't there.

Jasper got up from the bed. Moving towards the bathroom made him feel like he was swimming in a lake of tar. The call of his morning routine was stronger than usual: he needed to do a specific sequence of actions to put that cosmos close to entropy in order.

1) Enter the bathroom and turn on the shower water.

2) Look in the mirror.

3) Brush your teeth.

4) Look in the mirror again.

5) Floss.

6) Get into the shower.

The freezing water hit the back of his neck and took the sponge from the knob. He rubbed the soap hard against that skin of the porcelain color. He rubbed until that same skin turned red, flaying. A moan of pleasure shocked his nerve endings.

Andy's hands slipping under his shirt, hot steel fingertips…

Jasper threw the sponge against the wall tiles and a hiss of anger gushed from his throat. He dug his nails into the palms until his arms trembled. Apathy made everything right.

Control.

He got out of the shower and dried his hair, careful not to observe the reflection of his back moving in the mirror. He dressed quickly, but without leaving out any details. Light blue sweatshirt, light jeans, sneakers. He began to gather his things. There were still several operations to be carried out.

When he finished gathering the necessary, the click of the lock startled him. The trench dagger took shape in his hand. A moment later, it was flying towards the door.

A flash of panic darted into Andy's gaze, who snapped to the side, just in time to keep the blade from sticking between his eyes. The impact of the knife against the corridor wall restored his awareness. 

"What the fuck?" gasped the guy at the door. He had a gym bag hanging from his shoulder and with one hand he was holding a guitar case.

Jasper hissed, "Where were you?"

Andy went back into the corridor, snatched the knife from the wall and went back into the bedroom. “I took the key and went home. If we have to leave I wanted to at least pack my bags. Then I left my parents a note and threw away my phone, at least I wanted to say hello to them."

"Why didn't you wake me up?" he snapped at him. “I thought you were gone. After that… after what you told me tonight you…” 

He was short of breath, his control more and more creaky, crumbly. How dare he make him feel that way?

Andy dropped the bag on the floor and got close to him. With each step, a piece of anger gave way to the fear he had felt of never seeing him again. 

“You're right, I'm sorry. It's just that you were sleeping and I thought it would take me an hour at the most. I was planning to come back earlier."

"You should have told me... I could have dematerialized with you... I could..."

Andy took his face in his hands and lifted it. The warmth of the palms against the cold skin was able to calm the emotional storm that was raging inside him. He hated it. He couldn't control it. “I mean,” Andy murmured, “I'm sorry. In what sense can you 'dematerialize'? "

Suddenly, everything was clear. If that guy didn't remember how he killed Prescott, he certainly didn't remember how he got him into that room. Jasper swallowed. “I can get to a place quickly if I have already been there or if I have thoroughly studied a reproduction of it. A photo, for example. That's how we got here."

"If I had known, I would have avoided taking that filthy tram." Andy gave him one last pat and got his things back. "So where do we go?"

"To the base." Jasper called Captain Vulkensauffen, who went to crouch between them both. "Take all you can."

A 'flup' later, the hotel room was gone.

In its place a large living room materialized, with elegant and modern lines, but with an abandoned air. Beyond the window the snow fell slowly on the forest. The "base" consisted of a luxury chalet designed to accommodate many more people than a runaway couple and a dog. Different rooms spread over several floors, from the canteen to the meeting room and the cold rooms, but the maintenance of the place left something to be desired.

"How fucking cold." Andy dropped the bag on the ground and chattered his teeth. “Where are we, at the North Pole? I can almost see the fucking reindeer out there. "

"Negative. We are located in Alberta, Canada, in the previous Sibear House." Jasper blinked. The cold the guy had mentioned wasn't a problem for him. “This building was designed to fulfill all survival functionalities and is the only place with safety standards appropriate to my situation. We are shielded and there are fifty-three miles between us and the first town."

Andy shivered. "Among the survival features you forgot the risk of frostbite."

Jasper clapped his hands to turn on the heaters and pointed to the fireplace set in the wall. A carpet of bear furs was spread out in front of the hearth. “You can turn it on. If you are cold, there are jackets in that wardrobe that are more suitable for the climate."

"Thanks."

Andy fumbled with the firewood and Jasper went out, stopping on the wooden porch that overlooked the landscape. A giant frozen lake unfolded under the pale blue sky and the early morning light flooded the fir forest. He stood there until he heard a patter behind him, followed by the scuffling of Captain Vulkensauffen.

"Do you want some?" 

Andy had stopped next to him, wrapped up in a black jacket full of big pockets and with an orange cap on his head. He was handing him a hot chocolate.

"I found a chocolate mix in the pantry," he said.

Jasper weighed the steaming cup as if it were a puzzle to be solved. It had been an objectively simple gesture, but in its gratuitousness it had silenced him. He drank under the crown of frozen stalactites that hung over their heads like the sword of Damocles.

"So what's the next move?" Andy asked.

“I have to work out a plan that will allow me to blow up the Traders operative base. I know the exact location, since they imprisoned me there for months, but I have to study the planimetry thoroughly, the movements of those who frequent it and intercept the optimal point where to place the explosives."

Andy nodded silently and looked up at the hawk as it took off from the roof. "It's nice here."

“It's quieter than a nightclub. Can you fight? "

The question caught the guy off guard. "I know how to kick ass someone and sometimes I like to shoot bottles, but for the rest..."

"Then you shouldn't go around the forest alone" Jasper decreed with his immortal atonality. "It's full of bears."


End file.
